Boris Johnson, A Crass Act?

I stared at the tweet, dismayed but hardly surprised by Boris Johnson’s latest intentional gaffe.

At least it wasn’t about Brexit this time.

No, the Tousled Toff was talking about all the money and police resources he believed were being wasted on investigating old child sex abuse claims.

The money was actually being “spaffed up the wall” on these inquiries, he said, and “an awful lot of police time” was spent looking at “historic offences and all this malarkey”.

And I looked at the clip of Boris on the radio talk show actually saying it.

Not angry, more languidly fulminating. Like a hungover lord of the manor irritated with cook because his roast pheasant wasn’t crispy enough.

Bloody privilege and all the responsibility it brings upon a chap, eh?

Noblesse obliging one to cut through all that PC malarkey and tell it like it is.

Why wouldn’t a fellow be annoyed at all those Jumped-up Jean-Claudes andMoaning Marios telling True Brits what to do?

We just need more police … more tea, Vicar?

Tell them all to spaff off.

Sorry, Vicar, harr, harr!

Oh for the days when Britannia Rocked and Ruled.

When Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was a lad.

And I thought of Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill, when he was fretting over quitting Genesis (Gen-exit, anyone?), and the lines:

When illusion spin her net

I’m never where I want to be

And liberty, she pirouette

When I think that I am free

Boris and the Brexiteers spinning their illusions of a golden age that never was — except maybe for him and his Balliol pals in Oxford — and liberty pirouetting right off the cliff edge — and all, it seems, because of a tiff among the Tory party’s ruling elite.

David Cameron, cranky with Boris and the Euro skeptics — maybe his pheasant was a little too crispy — thought he’d call their bluff by calling a referendum on leaving this EU malarkey behind.

And promptly buggered off to North Kensington.

Eton bread is soon forgotten.

Camers left it to the minions, ie the people of the green and peasant lands of Britain and Europe, to clean up the Brexit mess.

Brexit. Brexit, Brexit … I’m just as confused and disillusioned as the next guy as I follow Theresa May and the never-ending real life episode of Deal or No Deal.

All those years of rapprochement and appeasement, no wars and building Europe now “spaffed up the wall”.

Spaffed up the wall.

How colourful. How crude, How Boris.

No thought for the people actually abused, or those affected, or just annoyed by his insensitivity and blunt pronouncings.

Made me think about what Billy Connolly said all those years ago about the way the upper crust and the ordinary man can get along so well; it was those social-climbing, middle-class wankers waving their Volvo keys that really got on his nerves.

Boris seems just like such an upper crust type, comfortable in his faux-eccentric skin, and it gives him a crumpled charisma, a licence to sound off and vacillate, to connive and to chide, and still get noticed and elected, as a hugely popular lord mayor of London and to sit at cabinet tables.

Foreign Secretary, for God’s sake, and still maybe PM one day.

And he’s paid enormous amounts of money to address conferences and bash out his Boris bombast in newspaper columns.

He might say awful things but at least he’s no stuffed shirt, or PC politician afraid to voice an opinion without running it by his army of spin doctors first.

And he has a sense of humour, unlike that noveau riche oik in the White House.

Here’s a thing: I could imagine what fun it might be to share a tipple with Boris, unlike other big name Leave merchants like the reedy Gove, the braying Farage or the lofty Reece-Mogg.

BJ seems to have mastered that brilliant illusion of seeming to be one of the people, when he is anything but.

I am left to wonder, though, is he actually dangerous … how influential has he been in the mess that Brexit has become?

Is he Machiavellian in his manipulative genius, or is he just a made man who got lucky?

But then, surely the people – and his readers, his party and his PM – have to take responsibility for the making of said Boris Johnson?

And maybe you and me too.

When all is said, he is elected, unlike opinion shapers like Piers Morgan

And a majority of the referendum electorate voted to leave Europe.

No clue how it was going to be done, and that seems to be still the case.

That’s just one of the things about democracy, it’s ultimately undemocratic.

Some people are just richer, smarter, more privileged, more connected, more lots of things than others.

More blond.

And they are listened to, while the voices of many we would consider more worthy, more sensitive, more everything are ignored. Or easily dismissed.

Not like Boris.

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A newspaper sub-editor for many years, I am now a freelance sub-editor, blogger and content writer. Husband of one and house daddy of two: a feisty and dramatic 16-year-old girl and a bright, resilient football nut of a boy aged 14. My website: endastories.com.

I have to agree with all you say, and you put it so eloquently. Boris Johnson is a loud comic character, but he’s exactly the sort that could be dangerous for our Country. We may laugh at him, or scowl at his latest outbursts, but I pray he never gets the power of PM.

I am not familiar with Boris Johnson. I will have to Google him. We do have a bombastic blond bombshell here in the states whom I would love to see voted out. He also pines for the golden age that we never really had. Before he was elected, I thought of him as a comic figure too. Watch out!

Hi Laurie. At least Boris’s hair is real!! Johnson is an interesting character … dangerous and venal, but interesting!! Yes, BJ too seemed more caricature than anything but never far from the levers of power in Britain!

I think we had a whole family meal time political debate centered around Boris and his “spaffed up the wall” comment! (just to point out that all my kids are in their teens and 20s before you wander what I’m teaching them! ) #DreamTeam

Boris Johnson as PM?? Now that is the stuff of nightmares. It’s too scary to even think about. Well put as always Enda. As far as I am concerned the man (along with his other outlier pal Nigel Farage) are ignorance personified. #itsok

Do not know where to start on this one but found myself nodding along at various points. As a working class lass who went to Cambridge University, it is absolutely true the posh and the poor can get on whereas the more nouveau riche are harder to contend with for some reason perhaps some inherent insecurity about where they fit. Boris is wrong in so many ways, dangerous in others and does not seem to care to be honest. Huge ego going on of course. I was treating Brexit lightly enough for my own sanity but this last couple of weeks it has started to make me feel very anxious and is contributing to depression knocking on my door currently. And that is a definite No Deal as I have been there before and do not like it. Rambling now but thanks for great writing as ever #ABloggingGoodTime

Brexit really has been bizarre, surreal almost in so many ways. Left to consider has ever so much havoc hve been caused by so few? And BJ prime amongst them. And like you say maybe the weirdest aspect of all of this is it is not evident thst BJ actually really believes what he says. Or has really thought out his position in a real, non short-term politicking way! And the economies of Britain and Ireland hang on the balance while all this plays out!!!

Honestly I think people got so sick and tired of the slick politicians who will kiss your cheek as they jam a knife in the back of the voters. It seems the world went for the complete opposite of that type of person with our recent elections. GONE are the days of the middle of the parties, people who want to compromise. I can only hope we work our way back to the middle soon! #DreamTeam

It seems that Mr Trump haas only rearranged the order of these two things: he will knife you in the front, and will kiss the nether cheeks of those he considers powerful and worth doing “business” with, ie will make him even richer. Like Putin. We the voters have to take responsibility, I believe.

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Hi, I’m Blogger Dad Enda. I used to blog mainly on family matters, but my kids are teens now, so I rarely mention them now. But I have opinions and thoughts on all sorts of things! Email me at endas1896@gmail.com